1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transport and/or storage device for pharmaceutical containers.
2. Description of the Related Art
For effective production of pharmaceutical containers, in particular syringes such as pre-fillable syringes, vials or ampoules, that are preassembled in a predefined configuration—so called nests—and are held defined in their position relative to each other and are thereby subjected together and/or simultaneously to the respectively required production processes. The transport and storage of the pharmaceutical containers to/from the devices carrying out the individual production processes, as well as positioning within these devices also occurs in these predefined configurations. For this purpose the pharmaceutical containers are held and stored in a receptacle in the form of a carrier plate, in a defined position relative to each other and relative to the carrier plate. This ensures simultaneous production of a high number of such pharmaceutical containers in one production process. The pharmaceutical containers are individually suspended in receiving openings, in particular in through-openings in carrier plates, are anchored or otherwise positioned therein, in order to protect the containers from damage during transport, and to ensure simultaneous further processing of the entire container configuration. Such predefined configurations with central alignment of the individual containers in the respective through-openings serve in particular to simplify of the collective further processing of the arrangement in predefined process steps, for example sterilization of the containers, filling of the containers, collective safe transport to and from the respective processing devices, closing of the containers, etc. Collective further processing of such an arrangement, in particular filling and closing of the pharmaceutical containers may, for example, occur in a device as described in international publication WO 2011/000606 A1, wherein the arrangement of the pharmaceutical containers undergoes the individual process steps held in place by a carrier plate.
Such carrier plates comprise a receiving region that has a plurality of through-openings to accommodate pharmaceutical containers, a handling region which defines a base plane for handling the carrier plate and/or supporting same, comprising a top side which functions as a pressure side under load, and an under side which functions as a tension side, and a means for increasing the rigidity of the carrier plate. As a rule, the carrier plate is manufactured of plastic. The carrier plate with the pharmaceutical containers positioned and centered therein is however subjected to a multitude of stresses during the aforementioned production and transport processes which lead to undesirable deformations of the carrier plate and which considerably impair handling of the carrier plate, as well as the quality of the production processes. In particular, irreversible cold deformations can be observed on the carrier plate due to the manipulation processes which are to be conducted automatically on the carrier plate to realize the aforementioned production processes. An additional substantial disadvantage is that a secure manual handling of carrier plates containing pharmaceutical containers is not assured due to the low rigidity of the carrier plates. Due to deflection caused under load and the therewith associated positional shift of the pharmaceutical containers relative to each other and in relation to the additional processing device, the filling height when filling the containers and/or the stopper placement height during closing can vary. Warping due to undefined storage conditions and air entrapments during placement of stoppers can also not be ruled out. The defect rate is therefore relatively high, leading either to the inability to use the affected pharmaceutical containers or in a desire to avoid such problems, leading to a disproportionate control system expenditure and/or provision of additional measures for handling.
What is needed in the art is a carrier plate for pharmaceutical containers of the type described above, so that the aforementioned disadvantages are avoided, the manual and also the automated handling of the preassembled arrangement is clearly improved and the defect rate is reduced.